CARACAS (Reuters):

An alleged plot to blow up New York's main airport has sparked fears about militant Islam in the Caribbean but experts say the region's main security risks remain drug gangs and smuggling rackets.

U.S. authorities said on Saturday they had charged four men of Guyanese and Trinidadian origin for plotting to blow up fuel installations at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

U.S. officials and commentators have pondered whether the Caribbean, more commonly associated with fine rums and cricket on the beach, was now an overlooked Afghanistan, teeming with Islamic radicals plotting attacks against U.S. interests.

Muslim leaders and analysts in the region insist the New York plot, if ultimately proved, would be nothing more than an isolated scheme planned by highly unprofessional conspirators.

"The main cross border concerns continue to be drug running, financial crime and people trafficking," said Chris Zambelis, Caribbean expert at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington.

"There is still no evidence of anything emerging that requires more forceful action," he said when asked about the growth of radical Islam.

U.S. police quickly reassured the public that they did not believe Osama bin Laden's al Qaida network was involved. They instead said the conspirators had ties to Jamaat Al Muslimeen, a radical group behind a 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad.

Composed chiefly of Afro-Caribbean converts, the group has not previously been associated with attacks outside Trinidad and on the island it is seen as a mafia-style crime gang, accused of murders, kidnappings and extortion.

SMALL CELLS

One U.S. terrorism expert said the alleged JFK plotters were not a sign of al Qaida establishing a Caribbean foothold but rather evidence of the growing threat of individuals the world over susceptible to al Qaida's message.

"We are dealing with small cells without a track record. This is not just a threat in the Caribbean, but part of a great decentralised effort, untraditional in nature," said Stephen Sloan of the University of Central Florida. "In the Caribbean we find confusing linkages with organised crime."

Several Caribbean Muslims saidthe alleged involvement of Jamaat Al Muslimeen showed radicalism was less likely among Muslims of Asian descent, by far the Islamic majority in the former British colonies of Guyana and Trinidad.